Page:Bobbie, General Manager (1913).djvu/204

194 "Well, I'm not quite sure. Nothing looks very natural around here. I'm beginning to think I'm somebody else."

"Well, I am surprised!" I exploded. "I certainly am surprised! Why, I never was so surprised!" I stopped a minute. Dr. Maynard was smiling right down into my eyes. "I never was so surprised in all my life!" I repeated, as if I hadn't another idea in my head.

He leaned down just here and picked up a half-dozen bundles, more or less, that I had dropped when we shook hands.

"I better help you carry some of these home, hadn't I?" he suggested.

"Oh, yes, do," I replied eagerly, and somehow we managed to walk back to the house together.

I don't know through what streets we went, past what houses. I can scarcely recall of what we talked. "He's come home! He's come home! He's come home!" kept ringing in my ears over and over again, like jubilant chimes. "Dr. Maynard has come home!" And whenever I looked up and saw him smiling down at me—so naturally, so beautifully—it seemed as if I should have to make a pirouette or two, right there on the sidewalk. Every time he laughed I wanted to shout; every time he remarked upon a new building or a new house, and especially when he exclaimed, "Good heavens! What have we here?" at the sight of one of the taxicabs, I wanted to turn a handspring. When he first came in view of 240 Main Street and stood stock-still in his tracks, and gasped, "Where's the cupola, and the French roof, and the iron fountain, and the barn, and